Working to make continuous improvements to their dairy – in terms of developing a functional cow that makes sense for the current market – has allowed Rosy-Lane Holsteins to remain optimistic about future opportunities in the industry.
“We have focused on breeding functional cows,” says Jordan Matthews, a partner with Rosy-Lane Holsteins. “[We’re looking for] high component cows that don’t take a lot of management power to care for. So many things on a dairy [involve] fixed costs, so to milk a cow that produces a half of pound to a pound less of components just doesn’t make sense to us.”
Located in Watertown, Wis., Rosy-Lane Holsteins began in the early ’60s when Lloyd and Rose Holterman moved their farm from Milwaukee to Watertown to avoid the urban pressure. In 1988, after returning home from school and farming on their own for a brief period, the Holtermans purchased the farm from Lloyd’s parents. It was at this time that their focus was geared towards breeding productive, long-lasting cows.
The first big expansion to their facility occurred in 1998, when the addition of a 300-cow freestall barn and milking parlor was added.
In 1999, Lloyd and Daphne formed an LLC and brought in non-family partners to the business. According to Matthews, since then the LLC has tried to better itself each year. “Some of the growth can be seen externally while a lot has been done internally to always to try to be a top farm in the dairy industry,” he says.
Currently, Rosy-Lane milks a total of 1,550 cows at two different locations—the home farm in Watertown, as well as the other farm in Paoli. Just last month, Lloyd and Daphne have begun retirement and both Matthews and Tim Strobel, the second partner of Rosy-Lane, continue to purchase the business from them, as well as run the day-to-day operations.
Early Introduction to Rosy-Lane
Both Matthews and Strobel started at Rosy-Lane when they were 14-years-old. Strobel was a farm kid who grew up on a small sheep farm just down the road from Holtermans. He asked Lloyd for a job and started out milking cows, but soon followed his passion to the field, began mixing the feed and soon was doing more and more fieldwork. In 1999 he was managing most of the cropping and manure programs on the farm and joined as a partner that same year. His current role includes overseeing fieldwork, feed management and handling the nutrient management planning, which includes dealing with DNR and CAFO permitting.
Matthews came from the city where he originally helped his mom with her cleaning company. This is where he was introduced to the Holtermans, as his mother cleaned their house. Eventually this led to a job at Rosy-Lane. “I remember my first and last job interview,” Matthews notes. “I was asked, ‘Why do you want to work here? And my response was, ‘I just need money.’ Then they asked me why I want to work with animals. My response was I never even had a pet.’”
Matthews laughs at this now, stating that he was clearly not the most qualified person, but the Holtermans gave him a chance anyway.
The Holtermans encouraged Matthews to go to college, where he later graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in dairy science and an emphasis in business.
“I came back to the farm and had to find a role for myself,” he shared.
Matthew’s role evolved with where his strengths aligned. “I started by working with our parlor staff and working on fine-tuning that part of the operation,” he shares. “We are slowly starting to try to do more things in house and build up people internally instead of hiring external resources. This has served us well, as it has allowed growth opportunities for many individuals who are still with Rosy-Lane today that have celebrated 10 plus year work anniversaries.”
In 2013, Matthews became a partner and has focused on strengthening the team at Rosy-Lane. “With Lloyd and Daphne slowly stepping back each year, and now retired, my responsibilities have shifted,” he says. “We have started to create a level of middle management to allow me more time to think strategically with the company. I continue to grow my knowledge of the business and financial side of Rosy-Lane and see that taking more and more time as our transition progresses.”
Overcoming Hurdles
Like the majority of farms, Rosy-Lane says labor has been their biggest challenge for the past 4-5 years. “We continually put our focus on people as that is an area we wish we could control more,” Matthews shares. “We want to have continued influence on improving the quality of life for all members of our farm family. Focus on better recruitment, filling gaps with high-quality candidates the first time, and working with all members of our teams to continue daily to build a team culture. Many things that are out of our control we try not to take a lot of our management time, as there isn’t much we can do about it.”
Utilizing Technology
Always looking for ways they can reduce error and increase labor efficiencies has Rosy-Lane keeping an eye on innovation and technology. “Many times, technology can help in these areas and that’s where we continually look to integrate technology into our dairies,” Matthews shares.
For example, Rosy-Lane tracks their cow’s activity with Afifarm pedometer system. It utilizes Bluetooth technology hourly to help detect heats and detect lameness or sick cows from lack of activity. They also utilize Afifarm as an ID when the cows enter the parlor, gathering data from the cows such as milk weights, conductivity (milk quality indicator) and milking speed. “We use milking speed to sort our cows’ groups, and we are also able to use some of the milking speed reports to check on milker protocol,” says Matthews.
Rosy-Lane also has a pulsation monitoring system in their parlor that graphs pulsators 24-hours a day and generates reports when a unit is off or not functioning correctly.
Another essential tool that Rosy-Lane has started to use more in the last three years is utilizing risk management tools. “We have used these tools a lot more in the last three years than probably the 20 years previously combined,” Matthews notes.
With both Matthews and Strobel purchasing their two majority partners out, they need to guarantee profits. “In years past we would ride the roller coaster of price, however nowadays it’s just not a strategy that we want to continue,” he says.
Rosy-Lane markets some of their milk with a buyer, as well as utilizes the Dairy Revenue Program and takes some positions on the open board, too.
Pushing components and parlor efficiencies at both of their facilities, Rosy-Lane believes they both continually help both their margins and bottom line.
Despite a lot of uncertainty facing the industry in the past couple of years, Matthews and Strobel see a lot of potential in the industry to come.
“We are excited about the future, and we do have some good young staff members we are bringing on board to our operation,” Matthews shares. “We are very excited to see what the future holds not only for Tim and I, but people just entering the industry.”
